Essay: The City Tourists Never Knew

Through the recounting of the legions of coventioneers and hearty partyers who have flocked to the city to frolic at Mardi Gras, jazz festivals and Sugar and Super Bowl games over the decades, New Orleans has come to be thought of as the place to forget your cares. It has been years since I've held that view. Growing up in a town some 40 miles upriver, I saw overwhelming evidence that the more accurate image is that of a city that care forgot. Now the rest of the world is getting a shockingly graphic and unsettlingly intense introduction to the forces...